


We See A Tree

by keyboardclicks



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, I probably didn't spell shenanigans right, Magical Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 05:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14372283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyboardclicks/pseuds/keyboardclicks
Summary: The tree is still....And then it isn't.





	We See A Tree

We see a tree in the middle of a towering golden city.  A tree that, a few months ago, had not been there. Yet it is massive and strong and full of gnarled branches and knotty wood.  At the tree’s base, made out of thick and twisting roots and almost sinking into its trunk, is what appears to be a pair of figures.  A tall and slender one cradling the head of its shorter, stockier companion. They are looking at each other. They are always looking at each other.

The city is… the city is not silent, but it is quiet.  Goldcliff is never silent, never still. But it is night.  And people are sleeping. And the center of town is, at least for the moment, empty.

Except that it isn’t.

“Sloane?”

The small voice does not break the air, but floats through it like smoke.  The voice of the tree. But the tree has two voices.

“Yeah?”

“...I don’t think we’re dead.”

“Haha…”  And who knew trees could laugh?  “I mean, I guess we aren’t, technically.  We’re a tree.”

“Yeah, but I mean… I think we’re more than that.  Like, I can still feel my arms and my legs, and I can still _see you._  I don’t think trees can feel or see.”

“How would you know?  Prior tree experience?”

The tree laughs again, a different laugh in its second voice.  “No. But it feels like I should be able to move.”

“So… do it.”

And Hurley tries.  She really, _really_ tries.  But it’s been so long—months, in fact—since she last moved anything that it’s like she’s forgotten how.  She tries to sit up, or move what should be her right arm, or make a fist with her left hand, or do _something_.  But nothing happens.  The only movements are the shaking of the branches in the dry wind and the running water all around them.

“Good effort, honey,” Sloan consoles.  

But Hurley, as she always has been, is stubborn.  “No, I can do this! Just… arg!” The straining does no good, and if her full wooden weight was not already resting on Sloan’s lap she would collapse on top of it.

The tree is quiet again.

“Try wiggling your toes, Hurl,” says Sloan, and we can’t tell whether or not she believes it will work but we know she wants to encourage Hurley in all of her pursuits, no matter how mundane.  “Maybe you’re just trying to do too much at once, maybe it’s like waking up from a dream and you have to do it a little bit at a time. Just wiggle your toes.”

The tree is still.

 

...And then it isn’t.

The shallow splashes, just a little.  As if someone threw a pebble barely large enough to plunk against the surface.  Then it happens again, and again, and again until miniscule ripples are reverberating out countless times.

“Holy shit, it’s working!”

“Keep trying, move your feet next!”

And she does.  She moves her feet, then her ankles, then tenses and relaxes her calves until her knees unlock, and all the while there’s the sounds of splintering wood and splashing water, quiet at first but growing in volume as the small figure’s movements move up and and up and up her body, until finally she’s so in control she can press her wooden palms beneath the water and _push._

And wood, luckily, is pretty strong.

Balance is another issue, though, and she sways as she stands too quickly and the world spins.  One hand braces itself against the trunk and there are two joyous, laughing voices breaking what quiet the center of Goldcliff is lucky enough to experience.

“Sloane!  Sloane, oh my god!  I’m up! I’m walking!”

And we see her splash in the water, feeling it run down her wooden body and catching in the grooves.  It is Hurely, and she is exactly the same as anyone would remember her only different, only made of wood and sap rather than flesh and bone.  And in her joyous dancing she hasn’t forgotten Sloane, the love of her life, and she quickly kneels back down.

“Alright, c’mon, let’s get you out, too!”

But unlike Hurley, and indeed unlike her own coaching, Sloan first wiggles her fingers.  Then her wrists, then her hands, then her arms and up along to her neck and head. She is animate from the chest up and with that newfound freedom she reaches forward and grabs Hurley by her wooden face and pulls her into a kiss.  A kiss so long waited for and so long missed.

Then Hurley stands again, and though Sloane is somewhere around two feet taller than her, manages to help her to her feet.

“Holy shit,” Hurley says again once they’re both steady.

“We’re not a tree!” exclaims Sloane, though she does look back to the roots and knots at the base of the trunk to see the outline where their figures had neatly fit.  “I mean… we are but? We’re not?”

“I… think we’re… tree spirits or something?” Hurley says.  “What are those called? Um… dryads? Honey, I think your spell turned us into _dryads_.”

“I didn’t know I could do that!  How did I _do_ that?!”

“I don’t know!  I guess you’re just amazing!”

They both laugh.  And then they hug again.  And Sloan lifts Hurley up into her arms so they can kiss and whatever it is dryads cry, they’re crying it.  

But they’re also still laughing.  

And they don’t know what they’re going to do now, or even what they _can_ do.  But Hurley and Sloane have each other.  And they have their love. And they have the promise of their friends that nothing like what happened here in Goldcliff will ever happen anywhere else.  And so they have time.

“Wanna just… go for a walk?” Sloan asks.  “I feel like I haven’t walked in like… forever.”

Hurley grabs her hand, and they may be made of wood but she swears that they are warm _._

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

And they do.


End file.
